Marianne Legato

Marianne J. Legato (born 1935) is an American physician, author, lecturer, and renowned expert in gender-specific medicine, which focuses on understanding how biological sex and gender influence human health and the experience of diseases.

Legato is the founder and director of the Partnership for Gender-Specific Medicine at Columbia University, where she specializes in the sex-specific aspects of men's and women's health. In 2006, she established the non-profit Foundation for Gender-Specific Medicine. Her research has primarily centered on women and heart disease, and she received the American Heart Association's Blakeslee Award in 1992 for her book on cardiovascular disease written for the general public.

Legato is the founder and editor of The Journal of Gender-Specific Medicine and Gender Medicine. She is a strong advocate for including women in clinical trials and is frequently cited in New York Magazine's annual "Top Doctors" issue. She has authored several books, including Why Men Die First: How to Lengthen Your Lifespan; Eve's Rib: The New Science of Gender-Specific Medicine and How It Can Save Your Life; The Female Heart; and Why Men Never Remember and Women Never Forget, which have been translated into multiple languages. Additionally, she edited the medical textbook Principles of Gender-Specific Medicine, which addresses the sex-specific aspects of normal human function and disease. The third edition of the textbook received a PROSE Award from the Association of American Publishers in 2018. Her latest textbook, The Plasticity of Sex, also received a PROSE Award in 2021.

Legato has been invited as a speaker at numerous lectures and conferences worldwide. She has appeared on various television and radio programs, including ABC's 20/20, NBC's Good Morning America, and The Today Show, as well as The Oprah Winfrey Show, discussing gender bias in women's healthcare and other related topics. She served as the president of the First International Congress on Gender-Specific Medicine in Berlin in 2006 and is the honorary president of subsequent International Congresses on Gender-Specific Medicine held in Vienna (2007) and Stockholm (2008).

Childhood and early career
Marianne J. Legato was born in 1935 in New York. During her childhood, she accompanied her father, a general practitioner, on his visits to patients' homes and hospitals. From a very young age, she aspired to pursue a career in medicine. Despite her father's initial concerns for her well-being, she decided to attend medical school. She enrolled at New York University College of Medicine, her father's alma mater, without familial support. Legato attributes her success during medical school and beyond to the mentorship she received from José Ferrer and M. Irené Ferrer, siblings of Mel Ferrer, whom she met at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. M. Irené Ferrer went so far as to personally speak with the dean of New York University College of Medicine to facilitate Legato's education there, even covering her tuition expenses. Legato has two children, Christiana and Justin, who grew up as part of the extended Ferrer family and affectionately referred to her as "gran".

Professional career
Upon completing her medical degree in 1962, Legato pursued an internship and junior residency at Bellevue Hospital, followed by a senior residency at the Presbyterian Hospital of the City of New York. From 1965 to 1968, she served as a visiting fellow in cardiology at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. In 1968, Legato assumed the role of instructor in medicine, marking the beginning of her academic career at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. Presently, she holds the position of Professor of Clinical Medicine at the institution. Legato is recognized as a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and a Diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine.

Since 1969, Legato has served as an attending physician at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center, and since 1973, she has also been an attending physician at the Presbyterian Hospital in the City of New York. Currently, she holds the position of senior attending physician at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital and has been a senior attending physician at the Presbyterian Hospital since 1998. Legato has held various teaching appointments and committee memberships at both institutions. In 1997, she founded the Partnership for Gender-Specific Medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.

As the director of the Partnership, Legato has fostered collaboration between academic medicine and the private sector to conduct research on gender differences. Her objective is to ensure the inclusion of women in clinical trials relevant to the health of both genders and to promote the study of biological distinctions between men and women, as well as how gender influences disease diagnosis and treatment, ultimately benefiting all patients. The Partnership for Gender-Specific Medicine is actively raising funds for the establishment of the M. Irené Ferrer Professorship in Gender-Specific Medicine at Columbia University.

The Foundation for Gender-Specific Medicine
In the early 1990s, the active involvement of women in clinical trials marked the initiation of gender-specific medicine.

Mission
The Foundation for Gender-Specific Medicine is dedicated to utilizing the study of gender to advance the development of new sciences and enhance healthcare for all patients. The foundation focuses on investigating the impact of biological sex and gender on normal human functioning and the experience of disease.

Purpose

 * Support original scientific research in gender-specific medicine. Annually, the foundation awards fellowships to young faculty members who are in the early stages of their investigative careers, aiming to cultivate their interest in gender-specific medicine.
 * Develop evidence-based protocols for physician guidance. The foundation is actively working on compiling a substantial body of evidence-based criteria to inform optimal gender-specific treatment across various medical specialties. They have completed recommendations for gender-specific care of diabetics, and efforts are underway to address cardiovascular disease.
 * Educate the general public and the scientific and medical community. Recognizing that science is interconnected with society, the foundation places significant emphasis on education. It views education as an integral component of its mission, facilitating open communication between patients and the medical community. Rather than solely providing information, the foundation encourages an interactive dialogue.

Recognition
Legato has received various professional accolades for her contributions, including the Martha Lyon Slater Fellowship from 1965 to 1968 and the J. Murray Steele Award in 1971, both granted by the New York Heart Association. Her research on the structure and function of the myocardial cell was supported by a Research Career Development Award from the National Institutes of Health and research grants from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. She has served on study sections to evaluate NIH grant applications at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. From 1995 to 1998, she served as a charter member of the advisory board to the newly established Office of Research in Women's Health at the NIH. During that time, she co-chaired the Task Force responsible for setting the research agenda on women's health for the 21st century.

In 1992, Legato received the American Heart Association's Blakeslee Award for her book titled The Female Heart: The Truth About Women and Heart Disease, published by Simon & Schuster. Her film, Shattering the Myths: Women and Heart Disease, earned her a first prize, known as a "Freddy", in the Women's Health category at the 1995 International Health and Medical Film Festival.

She was recognized as an "American Health Hero" by American Health for Women in 1997 and was honored with the Women's Medical Society of New York's annual Woman in Science Award in the same year. Ladies Home Journal named her a "Heroine of Women's Health" in the fall of 2000. Legato has been consistently recognized as one of New York's top doctors by New York Magazine, most recently in 2009.

In 2002, she received the Woman in Science Award from the American Medical Women's Association. She was featured in the June 1994 issue of Mirabella magazine's "1,000 Women for the 1990s" and was included in the New York Times list of accomplished healthcare professionals in the field of women's health in June 1997.

In 2004, Legato was one of the 300 American physicians featured in the National Library of Medicine's documentary Changing the Face of Medicine. She received the National Council on Women's Health Award for distinguished service in gender-specific medicine in 2005. The Ladies' Home Journal established the annual Marianne J. Legato Award in Gender-Specific Medicine in her honor in 2006.

In recognition of her work on the differences between men and women, Legato was granted an honorary PhD from the University of Panama in 2015.

In 2018, she was honored with a PROSE Award from the Association of American Publishers for the best book on clinical medicine for Principles of Gender-Specific Medicine: Gender in the Genomic Era (Third Edition). Her book, The Plasticity of Sex: The Molecular Biology and Clinical Features of Genomic Sex, Gender Identity, and Sexual Behavior, won a PROSE Award in the Biomedicine category in 2021.